installpkg does not work for source tarballs at all. It only works for prepackaged binaries.

In general you want to install Vector Linux packages, not stuff from upstream. We also package JRE separately and what you have downloaded will undoubtedly cause conflicts. If you want the package management system to work including automated updates you can't bypass it like this.

Hi Martin109,Don't let Caitlyn's post scare you, it's just a warning. It sounds to me that all you have at this point is a downloaded tar file for openoffice. That in itself is not going to cause any harm. You can just delete it.

If you run the command I gave you in the previous post you will be installing the latest openoffice in the VectorLinux repository. It should give you everything you need. If you prefer the gui, just open GSlapt, search openoffice and choose the one of the same name as my previous post.

As you can see, I'm very much a newbie when it comes to installing stuff, though I have managed, somehow, to install Skype and RealPlayer, rather more by happy accident than knowing what I was doing.

I did first try Gslapt, and searched for OpenOffice, but this drew a blank, which is why I was tempted by the 'download-from-OpenOffice-site-and-try-slapt-get' route. This worked for Skype, as I downloaded that from www.skype.com.

I shall be back at that machine next Tuesday, and will try the above solution, stretchedthin, but note that I have VL 5.9. Does that mean installing OpenOffice will not be possible? I'm not sure I'd want to embark on upgrading to VL6.0 just yet, when otherwise everthing's working OK!

I'll be doing all that on Tuesday with my Fujitsu machine. Meanwhile, with my other, more modest VL5.9 machine here, you instructions may well come in handy, but not for OpenOffice, as there wouldn't be space for it.

As a general rule you don't want to download directly from the repository because you don't get dependencies that way. (Yes, I know OpenOffice doesn't have dependencies but it's a general rule.)

There is a bug in VL 5.9 where the patches repository isn't enabled by default. You really do need to check what repositories you have enabled, which should *always* include packages, patches, and extra.

In gslapt, click on Edit -> PreferencesClick on the Sources tabMake sure packages, patches and extra are checked. Make sure testing and unstable are not checked.

When gslapt tells you that changes have been made and that you need to reload the package list click "Yes".